


Open The Pod Bay Doors, Stark

by dellaxstreet



Series: If You Give A Supe A Paycheck [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Darcy just can't catch a break, Dubious Science, For Science!, Gen, Humor, Improper use of Coffeemakers, Nick Fury Needs A Drink, Science Bros, Scientists have no common sense, Space bears from another dimension, Tony Stark Does What He Wants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12012270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dellaxstreet/pseuds/dellaxstreet
Summary: What she meant to do was thank the director for giving her what had to be the first compliment she’d received from him. Unfortunately, what came out of her mouth was, “When they blow shit up, I’m the one who has to deal with the space bears and evil coffeemakers. I just didn’t want to ruin my new boots.”Featuring: The origin story of Darcy Lewis, Professional Superhero Cat Wrangler, reasons Jane and Tony should never be unsupervised, Bruce getting stuck with their shenanigans, and the world's most humorless pirate captain.





	Open The Pod Bay Doors, Stark

It all started on a Thursday. Distantly, Darcy thought that she should have known trouble would fall on this day, and not just because Thor was often much too pleased with the fact that humans had named a day of the week in his honor. When Thursdays ended in Asgardian partying, it was bad enough, she’d learned over the course of the last month and a half, but when they ended in Tony Stark crashing after his sleep-deprived lunacy of the week took off without him? That was when things went critical.

Really, this was all Jane’s fault. Not that she could blame her best friend/boss for apparently demanding that her personal Scientist Wrangler (formally known as assistant, mostly called an intern for old time’s sakes) be included in the move to New York. For all its craziness, New York City was a big improvement over constant travel in and out of Norway.

Norway was cold as balls. This was a scientific fact. Not the kind Jane worked with, which all sounded like they belonged in science fiction and which Darcy privately thought of as _Science!_ instead of just science. Just an observable fact, like the fact that her scarf budget had quadrupled and she’d been forced to learn how to read signs written in a language that was absolutely nothing like English.

Norway had taught her that metal bands who added umlauts to random letters had no idea how to pronounce them, and that it was possible to get tired of snowball fights. She hadn’t even thought that this was possible, and yet the frozen north had made her really appreciate when they held conferences in warm places.

So when Thor came back from whatever his latest adventure in the multiverse was and S.H.I.E.L.D. offered Jane a position working alongside one of her idols, she’d jumped at the chance. Literally jumped. Coffee had gone everywhere and a Pop Tart was sadly sacrificed to the joyous occasion. Jane had decided to argue that where she went, Darcy went, which was how Darcy had found herself with the security clearance to get into Avengers tower and the ability to ask an AI to help with her grocery list. A lot of it was incredibly cool.

A lot of it, though, was fucking bananas. The Science Bros, as she’d come to call the gang in which Jane worked with Bruce and Tony, had even more of a habit than Dr. Foster alone of sometimes forgetting to eat, sleep, or do anything other than Science! until they collapsed. Or tore another hole in the fabric of the universe. One of the two. The point was: She’d gone from having one scientist to wrangle, to three.

If she didn’t do it, Darcy learned on her very first Thursday, then inevitably something would explode. It would, in fact, explode all over her new shoes, forcing her to give them up in case they became a portal to another dimension, send her to the decontamination showers, and ultimately lead to her hanging out in clothing borrowed from Bruce (because he was the only conscious one) while she prayed Tony didn’t wake up and catch her hanging out without a bra on.

“What did _I_ miss?” he’d demanded, when he lifted his head from the desk to find Darcy perched on an empty space at the end of a lab bench, coffee cup in hand, in clothes that were too big on her but could not hide her lack of boob support. “Bruce, you hooked up with the hot intern while I was asleep? I’m so offended that you’d do that. I deserve the right to wolf whistle!”

Cutting her eyes over to him, she moved her shoulders in a very deliberate fashion and cocked an eyebrow. “Once you go green, it’s like nicotine. You couldn’t handle me, Stark.”

Bruce promptly choked on his tea.

Tony eyed her, his expression speculative, like he’d never really gotten a good look at her before. It was definitely true that for the last several days, Darcy had mostly been preoccupied with the lab’s Pop Tart supply, trying to coax Jane into acting like a functional human, and trying to avoid being glared to death by Nick “This Eyepatch Says I’m A Badass” Fury.

“Points for the rhyme, Betty Boop.”

She rolled her eyes, hopping down to go shake Jane out of her slumber. “It’s Lewis. Darcy Lewis. World’s Greatest Intern, Professional Scientist Wrangler, not here to be ogled by superheroes. Unless you’re Captain America. Captain America can look _all_ he wants.” Leaning over, she waved the cup of coffee under Jane’s nose like old-fashioned smelling salts, grinning when the other woman jolted blearily awake, reaching out for the mug. “And whatever you were doing before you fell asleep, it exploded. So, you owe me a new pair of boots.”

Bruce appeared to be trying not to smile into his teacup. He seemed to have recovered from the shock. Tony, on the other hand, continued to watch her, a grin spreading across his face as he stroked his beard like some kind of cartoon villain. “I like you, Lewis. Maybe I’ll keep you.”

“If you take her I will _end you,_ Tony Stark!” That was enough to snap Jane awake, glaring at him with the full force of her not inconsiderable wrath. “She’s _my_ intern. Get your own.”

Darcy smirked. “If you’re very good, you can ask to borrow me.” Half-dragging Jane bodily out of the chair, she held the cup of coffee just out of reach, luring the scientist to her feet and toward the door. “Come on, let’s go, you can’t Science! if you pass out on top of anything else. And I am not going to fight space aliens or bears from other dimensions when you open another hole in the universe, either. You’ll make the hole, fall asleep, and leave me to do the ass-kicking.”

“But I’m working!” came the feeble protest, still grabbing for coffee.

“You can come back and play with the other scientists when you’ve had your nap, Jane.”

This was how most days ended: Darcy was forced to employ increasingly creative methods and arguments to coax her favorite physicist out of the lab and into her own bed, while Tony and Bruce looked on amusedly. But her second Thursday actually did end in fighting bears from another dimension, and her _third_ Thursday ended in trying to keep Jane from single-handedly destroying everyone’s sleep patterns when an Asgardian-thrown party created the unstoppable two-person whirlwind of Jane and Thor going at it. Luckily, JARVIS agreed with her plan and helped her locate a hose.

Eventually, it became clear that Tony was even worse about sleeping like a person or eating regularly when he got really into a project, and since he owned the building, he was harder to wrangle than Jane. Even Iron Man, however, was susceptible to the power of switching to decaf. When that failed after the third day, Darcy resorted to a variety of other methods, including but not limited to convincing JARVIS to speak in a Jamaican accent until Tony went to bed.

Pushing sandwiches in Bruce’s direction was easier, at least. His extreme yoga lifestyle made it harder for him to pout and fight her. He was just so opposed to being taken care of that you had to eat with him, like he was some kind of baby bird.

So really, it was inevitable that Darcy would decide she’d gotten the hang of it. And then the sixth Thursday happened. It was a dark day for every employee of Stark Industries who was not Jane Foster, Tony Stark, or Bruce Banner. On her way in that evening, she overheard no less than six people muttering about how they really should work somewhere else, and one woman saying something about how she should’ve gone to law school.

The chain of events went like this: First, Jane refused an afternoon nap, making this her forty-eighth straight hour awake. Second, she was sleep-deprived enough to agree when an equally tired and somewhat manic Tony suggested that it would be easier if the coffeemaker was more like JARVIS. Third, Bruce failed to weigh in on this subject, since he didn’t drink coffee. Fourth, the decision was made to try and invent a sentient coffeemaker.

Fifth, and finally, it really should have occurred to Tony that not every AI would have Jarvis’s sense of humor or adaptability right away. Because the truth was, he and Jane had just made a machine that by definition worked with boiling steam and incredibly hot water self-aware. Oh, and they’d also decided to praise the newly christened Java 9000 for delivering unto them the lifeblood of intellectuals, caffeine.

Who named an AI after a supercomputer that literally tried to kill everyone, anyway? It was one step away from calling the thing Skynet and pretending it wasn’t going to turn on its human overlords. Seriously.

By the time Darcy got into the lab, Bruce was looking dangerously green around the gills, Jane had one hand wrapped in a towel full of ice thanks to unexpected coffee burns, and Tony was trying to coax the coffeemaker down while it went on an ego trip about how they all needed it so much.

“I was only gone for an hour!” she hissed, stalking over to where the so-called genius was trying to hold a conversation with his autodrip about world domination. “Can’t I leave for an hour to shop without you two unleashing a coffee pot supervillain on Manhattan?! I hate _Science!_ so much right now.”

Reaching around the cloud of ominous steam pouring out of Java 9000, she yanked it away from the wall, unplugging it in one swift motion. The blinking display fell away, along with any and all rhetoric about how humanity would bow to a new caffeinated world order. “Don’t tell me none of you thought to unplug it?”

Three so-called geniuses exchanged sheepish looks. Now that the infernal machine was definitely off, Bruce was back to a more normal complexion, exhaling slow breaths before he looked from the appliance in Darcy’s hands to her face and back. “This is Tony we’re talking about. He might have tried to engineer around that just for fun.”

Darcy rolled her eyes hugely. “You always leave a way to shut down the supercomputer, just in case it goes evil and tries to take over the world! Have movies and comic books taught you nothing?”

In the seat she’d perched on, Jane’s expression began to droop. “It seemed like a good idea, I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah, and so did exploring every creepy planet where it turns out there are aliens that jump out of your chest or try to mount your head over their fireplace, but it never ever ends well! Everyone already can’t work the espresso machine, why would you make it harder for me to get coffee?!” She let out a long sigh. “JARVIS, where’s the nearest hammer?”

“In Mr. Stark’s private garage, Miss Lewis.”

“What?” Tony squawked, jumping up. “You can’t go in my workshop, and you definitely aren’t using a hammer to ruin my masterpiece!”

Quietly, Darcy resisted the urge to bang her head into the nearest wall. She liked her head. She needed her brain cells. Brain cells didn’t grow back. She especially needed brain cells in this line of work. You never knew when alien space bears would interrupt your lunch, or your boss would accidentally make a supervillain. “The coffeemaker is evil. Eeeeeeviiiilllllll. I don’t care if you sold your firstborn to make it, I’m gonna go smash it with a hammer, and you’re not gonna get in my way. Or I’ll call Pepper and tell her you almost made us slaves to a race of superintelligent coffeemakers instead of going the fuck to sleep.”

There was a very pregnant pause. “I take it back. You’re not my favorite intern any more, Lewis.”

“Lies and slander, I’m everybody’s favorite because I am a fucking delight.” Turning, she settled her gaze on Bruce and jerked her head toward the door. “Hey Professor, wanna help me smash it?”

For a moment it looked like Bruce didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, facial expression caught between them somewhere in the realms of total disbelief. Then he broke into a wide, genuine smile, amusement written all over his features. “I guess that is my specialty, huh?”

“Damn straight.” Darcy nodded, turning to point an accusing finger at Jane and Tony in turn. “If you two aren’t in bed in the next 20 minutes I’m getting JARVIS to find me another hose, and I will herd you there personally. Do I make myself clear?”

Both of them nodded, with varying degrees of wide-eyed fear on their faces.

“Good. Let’s go, Dr. Jekyll.” Tucking the Java 9000 under one arm, she marched off out of the lab, pleased to see that Bruce was in fact following her. He’d even let out a distinct chuckle at the sound of the nickname she’d decided to assign him. Okay, it was a little on the nose, but she couldn’t help herself.

Half an hour later, JARVIS reported that Dr. Foster and the Tin Man were both safely in their rooms. The fiendish coffeemaker lay in ruins on the workshop floor, Bruce looked like he’d worked off some stress breaking it to pieces, and Darcy was wondering if they could work in “smash it with a hammer” as a workplace-wide program for calming down after their resident mad scientists did something crazy. Or just in general. Avengers tower was a wild place to work.

Half an hour after that, the world’s most humorless pirate captain caught up to her in the hallway. “I hear you’ve learned to keep Foster, Stark and Banner from blowing any more shit up than necessary, Lewis.” Fury’s cold gaze settled on her as he turned his head to look. “I appreciate the amount of paperwork I won’t be doing now that the children are behaving.”

What she meant to do was thank the director for giving her what had to be the first compliment she’d received from him. Unfortunately, what came out of her mouth was, “When they blow shit up, I’m the one who has to deal with the space bears and evil coffeemakers. I just didn’t want to ruin my new boots.”

It looked, for one terrifying second, like Fury might crack a smile. This would obviously have been a sign of the apocalypse, not to mention an omen of horrific things to come, so Darcy was grateful that he did not lose his stoic composure as he regarded her, then nodded. “We could use your skill set, you know.”

Oh no. Definitely not. Jane’s head would explode, it would take way too long to put her sciencey brain back together and stop her from comfort eating a whole box of Pop Tarts at a time. Not since the last time they’d ended up in a Ben and Jerry’s coma over alien boyfriends who stopped in our dimension and didn’t even say hello had this been allowed to happen and Darcy would be damned if she let it happen again.

“No way. _No way_. You can’t make me join the jack-booted thug brigade. I work with Jane, there’s a contract and everything. I know my rights, Eyepatch Man.”

The look Fury gave her made her wonder if Siberia was warm this time of year. “I have no intention of taking you away from Dr. Foster. That many unattended scientists would be a fucking disaster.” He paused for effect. “However, S.H.I.E.L.D. are prepared to give you a few more people to attend to… have you met all of the Avengers yet?”

Whoa. Darcy’s eyes went wide. “You want me to babysit Captain America? Holy shit.”

His expression twitched slightly, a sinister kind of amusement sparking in his eye. “Trust me, Lewis. Steve Rogers is going to be the least of your problems.”  



End file.
